Granny's Mystery Recipe

20251213

Written for Luna Asli Kolcu’s “Myths of Winter - Week 2” event.

Kevin wished he’d gotten to cook with granny. It sucked being the only grandchild who’d missed out on this formative family tradition. He hadn’t even gotten to meet her!
Oh, everyone pointed to the photo of her cradling him, but that didn’t count. He hadn’t even been a year old. And soon after that visit The Stroke happened, stealing granny away in the night and changing the family forever.
She’d never gotten to make him a birthday cake. He hadn’t decorated cookies with her. They hadn’t come up with a special, personalised soup recipe just for him.
All these formative memories, these milestones that everyone else looked back on fondly, had been stolen from him.
But just like every other grandchild he’d been given a copy of granny’s recipes. Uncle Bob had carefully transcribed everything from her hand-written rolodex, added all the stories attached to each recipe that anyone could remember, then gotten the result properly bound and everything. The family recipe book had been presented to Kevin on his eighteenth birthday for him to take to uni (where it hadn’t seen much use) and carried to every home since.
When he was younger the book felt like a reminder of what he’d missed out on. How he was the unlucky grandchild. Now, though… it was a treasure.
Sure, he still wished he could’ve made all these with granny. Heard the stories from her lips. Maybe added a few of his own to the list, like the other grandkids. Been shown first-hand what “a good dash” or “until nicely brown” or a hundred other technical terms actually meant.
But learning how to cook from the rest of the family, with their memories of granny hovering in the background like a culinary patron saint, was far better than losing all of that tradition.
Flipping through the book once more, absently picking at dried-on gunk and pondering what to cook for next week’s lunches, he ended up on the last page. The mystery recipe. Uncle Bob swore up and down that he’d copied the recipe exactly, and even shared the scan in the family chat to silence the sceptics who insisted granny must have listed at least one ingredient.
No measurements was one thing, a few of the recipes were like that. But this recipe had merely the title (Memory Soup) and the instruction “Cook what they loved most”.
Via extensive cross-referencing of the recipe list and people’s memories it’d been concluded that this had to be the creamy veg soup which granny served at every family gathering. Everyone agreed that it’d varied, and said that each time it contained at least one ingredient which granny had seen at the market or on sale and which prompted stories of a long-dead family member.
They’d been trying to recreate it ever since. But, while many of the attempts were delicious, all of them had been declared “not quite right”.
Kevin’s finger gently traced the strange instruction.
More than anyone, he wanted this recipe recovered. Apparently it was the first proper food he’d ever eaten, at that one visit to granny’s. Granny had made sure it was safe for him to eat (mom always said “with sugar instead of honey, and leaving out the cheese”) and when dad offered baby Kevin a taste he loved it and ate until he was “plump like a drum”!
Then he’d fallen asleep, leading to the photo of him and granny. Dad always claimed “it was the first time you’d looked happy in weeks. Teething was hard on you.”
Just imagine - if he hadn’t liked the soup, or granny hadn’t thought to tweak that batch so he could eat it, the only photo of him and granny might’ve had him crying and pouty. Ugh. Talk about a near miss.
Well… it was good weather for soup. He had milk and plenty of veggies. In fact, this week his veg box had a bunch of parsnips, something he rarely bought, but he knew they were one of granny’s favourite ingredients.
That settled it! One batch of Memory Soup coming up. Kevin plucked the sheet of notebook paper which was tucked right at the back of the book and examined the collected notes on the recipe so far.
He knew it had honey and soft cheese (usually goat). Lots of veg, mostly roots. Mushroom stock. It was blended. Milk was stirred in at the end. Seasonings included nutmeg and garlic.
Soon the kitchen was filled with humming and fragrant steam and the clatter of cooking.
A pressure cooker made soup a breeze, and he was so glad he’d got this stick blender. Now to season and add the milk.
Kevin sipped at the soup, his brows furrowed and eyes squinched in concentration. People always said that granny said the trick was to ask “what’s missing?”.
More honey? Or garlic? Or salt? Hmm…
He stared at his spice rack, then - perhaps guided by a hand which had never gotten a chance to wrap around his and demonstrate - he grabbed the paprika.
Just a pinch. Enough to give a subtle bright warmth once the “hearty glug” of milk was added.
As he stirred it all together the smell made him teary. Not onion-prickle watering, more the stinging from watching a bittersweet movie.
Let’s see what it tasted like now.
Siiiip…
For a moment, he could almost hear a familiar lullaby hummed by a voice he didn’t know. His nose tickled with lavender perfume and old-fashioned cleaning mixes. He felt enfolded in warm, wise, loving arms.
It wasn’t the same recipe. He was sure of it. Nobody ever mentioned it containing parsnips. But oh, it was right. Like granny was standing at his shoulder nodding. Like he’d snatched back a scrap of what life stole from him.
Kevin wiped his eyes and smiled at Granny’s Memory Soup, an embodiment of generations of family love. Then he reached for the family chat. Time to get more mouths on the case.

Prompt was “Your grandmother’s recipe book contains one dish with no ingredients listed—just the instruction: ‘Cook what they loved most.’ When you make it, the kitchen fills with the smell of something you’ve never cooked before. Something that belonged to someone who died before you were born.”